I was looking the
other day for a word to describe what I was feeling. This is the word that came
floating across the myriad fields of my imagination.
melancholy
Definition of melancholy
1. 1a : suggestive or expressive of sadness or depression of mind or spirit <sang in a melancholy voice>b : causing or tending to cause sadness or depression of mind or spirit : dismal <a melancholy thought>
It is a word not
often used anymore. Hard to believe just a few short years ago, it was a
diagnosis made by doctors. It was also the reason for someone to be sent to a
mental asylum. How it must have felt to be shipped off, just for feeling sad,
for what was possibly the rest of your life?
Can you imagine
waking up one morning feeling off, and as the weeks pass this feeling, this melancholy; becomes your norm. A feeling of pensive sadness. I've always
thought of it as an abiding sadness. One that is always with you. A feeling of
mourning; but you're not aware of losing anything. I think the word fits with what you feel.
In my search for
the meaning of melancholy; I think this excerpt from Vocabulary.com says it the
best.
Melancholy is beyond
sad: as a noun or an adjective, it's a word for the gloomiest of spirits.
Being melancholy
means that you're overcome in sorrow, wrapped up in sorrowful thoughts. The
word started off as a noun for deep sadness, from a rather disgusting source.
Back in medieval times, people thought that secretions of the body called
"humors" determined their feelings, so a depressed person was thought
to have too much of the humor known as melancholy — literally
"black bile" secreted from the spleen. Fortunately, we no longer
think we're ruled by our spleens, and that black bile has been replaced by
another color of sorrow: the "blues."
So, think of the
many people, mostly women, who were sent to live in places like Bedlam just for
feeling sad. I, for one am happy that science has moved forward enough to
understand some of what causes Depression, and as such melancholy. I suffer
from Bipolar Disorder. What is hard to make understood to friends, and medical
professionals, is that to my mind there is a difference in the two. My
depressions leave me feeling like I am trapped in the darkest pit of Hell. I
feel like nothing I do is, or can ever be done right. I am an absolute failure.
The wish to just go to sleep, and never wake up is a very real battle.
My melancholy is
like stated above, a pensive sadness. An abiding sadness, where you sit, and
for no reason tears fall from your eyes. Soon you are sobbing silently so as you won't disturb anyone. For most people a good cry, helps clear away some of the
fog from the mind. When I am in this mood, the crying is just a physical
release of the mourning I cannot express verbally.
I move through the
day in this sort of fugue state, my mind wrapped in cotton tainted with the
color of sadness. And yes, I do feel emotions have colors. The color of sadness
is indeed blue. Where the color of Depression is black, and when my mind flips
its switch. When the manic phase begins, I color that a burnt orange color. For
my Anxiety/Panic disorder when that ugly conditions plays prey upon my mind,
and body. I am in a full brilliant red zone. Everywhere I turn I see shades of
blood.
Luckily for me,
these melancholy days’ pass, just as the other days do. I come out on the other
side with a renewed view of my life. I once again find joy in small things. I
feel like my world is once again rotating on its axis correctly. I know many
who can identify with some of what I have written. I know that there are others
who cannot differentiate between the feeling of melancholy, and that of
depression. For those, I hope beyond measure that they have sought help in
dealing with these feelings, or if you haven’t will please consider doing so. I
have listed some sites that offer help to those who feel overwhelmed, and can’t
do it alone anymore. Please, don’t do it alone. There are others out there, who
like me know your struggle. I hope that this empowers those reading, and doesn’t
send them into a “melancholy” mood. Until we meet again. Remember to live and
laugh.
National Institute
of Mental Health- https://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml
Anxiety and
Depression Association of America- https://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/depression
National Alliance
on Mental Illness- http://www.nami.org/
Or you can call-
Crisis Line 1-800-273-TALK(8255)
